


in a world where heroes come and go, i just lost the only one i know

by here_withoutyou



Series: got a memory of you I carry in my soul, I wrap it close around me when the nights get cold [4]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Gen, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha is a hero, POV Natasha Romanov, Vormir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:22:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21746704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/here_withoutyou/pseuds/here_withoutyou
Summary: It is a move of power in its own right. A matter of taking back what belongs to her and always should have belonged to her in the first place. In the end, she won.The scene that will never let me go plus Natasha's thoughts during the fall.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov & Avengers Team
Series: got a memory of you I carry in my soul, I wrap it close around me when the nights get cold [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1384333
Kudos: 16





	in a world where heroes come and go, i just lost the only one i know

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know it's been more than seven months already. No, I'm still not over it. So this is me trying to deal with my feelings by adding some things to THAT scene (because even though it was super emotional it still didn't feel like enough) and making her choice a powerful one.

Neither of them knows how long they are standing there. Foreheads leaned against one another, holding hands, eyes closed. Lost in the hopelessness of it all, the impossible choice they are faced with. Their hot breaths mingle somewhere in the space between them that is only filled with the sound of their rapidly beating hearts and Vormir’s cold air.

 _Whatever it takes._ Those words have nested themselves permanently in both their minds. A painful reminder of everything they have already lost and everything that they still have to lose.

They have said their goodbyes already, but somehow she feels the need to say more, to make him understand. If not the decision she is going to make then at least what he means to her.

“The last five years that’s all it has been about. Bringing everyone back. Bringing our family back together. When you found me, Clint, you saved me. I used to have nothing, used to be no one but the assassin they made me. But then I met you. And at first, it was only about wiping out the red in my ledger, about making up for the horrors. But then I got this team, this family, and it became so much more than just that. I found my spot in the world, I became _someone._ Someone worth loving, worth remembering. And I had all that thanks to you. I owe you my life. You gave me everything. You gave me a purpose, you gave me happiness, and I’m so grateful for that. Because of you I’ve had everything I never thought I could even dream of, because of you I’ve had a happy life. Of course I wish I’d have more time, of course I do. But don’t we all? What matters in the end isn’t how much time we had, but how much we made of it. How fully we’ve lived, how much we’ve loved. And I’ve lived, truly lived and truly loved, thanks to you. So just this once, let me save you. Just this once, let me repay the favor and give something to you. Please, you know I couldn’t live with myself, you know I couldn’t go on after losing you.” 

The tears are fully streaming down her face now. Every felt emotion is portrait on it openly, more so than ever before. Her voice is barely there when she continues. “I am who I am because I knew you. And I’m thankful. For knowing you, for everything. But you have to let me do this. Please, let me go.” Her eyes bore into his, intensifying her plea. 

She has said everything she needed to say, spoken all the words to him that she has always wanted to. But somehow it still doesn’t feel like enough, and she knows that perhaps nothing ever will. 

“You know that I can’t, Natasha. I can’t.” There is so much pain in his voice, so much hurt on his face, and Natasha wishes that there was anything she could do to soothe it. 

“Please,” she insists, the shattered plea all she can still manage to say. 

An argument, a fight, wasn’t how things were supposed to end between them. It should have been gentle, with affectionate goodbyes and words tenderly whispered to one another, making this less painful, letting her leave this world gently. Of course it isn’t. In the end, they are both just too stubborn for that. Two trained assassins who have both been fighting their whole lives and fighting each other from day one. How could it be any different now? A gentle ending almost seems too uncharacteristic, undermining the very essence of their friendship and shared years. 

He finally nods, tears streaming down his face now, too. “Okay. You win.” But instead of admitting defeat, he starts sprinting for the cliff, her words still ringing in his ears. _Please, let me go._

He doesn’t; instead, he fights to keep her alive with everything he has. Always trying to protect her. Always trying to save her. He is such an idiot, but she adores him for it. It has always been a comforting thought that there is at least one person in this world who considers her worth saving. 

An explosion throws her off course and it only takes her a split second to realize what he is trying to do. In that moment, she could have let him jump for her. Could have let him make the sacrifice and return home to witness the outcome of their fight and the final fulfillment of five years worth of desperate hope and the refusal to give up. 

But she doesn’t. She leaps after him, and from there on it all happens way too quickly for her to fully understand the consequences of her actions, to grasp the finality of it all. 

“Damn you,” he says as she is dangling over the abyss from his grasp. It is nothing more than a whisper, full of the painful realization that they are now sharing the same lifeline, and that there is nothing in his power that he can do to make it to the ground before her. 

_Damn her._ Damn her skill set. Damn her always being one step ahead of him. Damn her never letting him win. Couldn’t she have let him win this one time? Only this one time? Damn this situation they are in. Damn the whole goddamn universe and all its unbreakable laws with it. They weren’t made for all of this. For alien invasions, and time travel, and facing the mysteries of space. They are just an assassin and a spy. Damn good ones, too. But this is way bigger than both of them, way bigger than anything they have ever been trained for. 

“Let me go,” she insists again, managing to make it sound like a plea for him to do as she asks when, in reality, they both know that she leaves him with no other choice. 

“You’re a goddamn hero, Natasha. I hope you know that.” He just feels like he needs to tell her. “But to me you have always been,” he adds, because it’s true, and because maybe he should have told her a long time ago. 

She smiles weakly. “Thank you,” she mouths up at him and then she gives him a small comforting nod. “It’s okay,” she whispers, and he can’t understand how she can say that, when so clearly everything is not. But he has no time to tell her anymore. 

Her last words linger for a moment, barely there yet the loudest thing he has ever heard, before her hand slips out of his forever. 

In the end, she is the one who wins their little struggle. After all, she has always been the better fighter of the two of them, even if just by a little bit. But that tiny little bit is all that she needs that day to save her best friend’s life.

***

Natasha doesn’t know if the drop is even higher than she anticipated or if the air rushing alongside her ears just makes her brain work at ten times its usual speed, but somehow time seems to stand still while she is falling, thoughts rushing through her mind. 

Natasha has never been afraid of dying. In her line of work she could never afford to be. Death has been her constant companion all her life. Sometimes as an ally, other times as an enemy. And she has always known that, one day, he would come for her too. That fact has never even so much as unsettled her. After all, she has never really been one to ponder too vigorously over things she could not change anyway, or to be afraid of endings. Death, to her, has always been as much a part of life as living has, and the end an inevitable part of every story. 

Somehow though, this is more than just that, she realizes as her life passes in front of her. It is more than just accepting death as something inevitable. It is not just unavoidable but meaningful. A necessary means to make this all worth it. To ensure that they have a chance to win this time. To save billions, trillions of lives. The realization makes it feel almost freeing in a way. A lost soul finding its tragic purpose at last. 

_Whatever it takes._

And if her life is what it takes, then this is what it has to be. If this is what it takes, she is willing to pay the price. A peaceful acceptance settles into her heart at that. 

Still, the last years have given her everything she thought she could never have. She found a family. She found out what it means to feel alive. She found people she cared about and a reason to live. She thought that having to leave all of it behind would hurt her and fill her at least with a bit of regret, but somehow it doesn’t. Somehow there’s nothing but a gratitude for all the time that she had, and the all fulfilling knowledge that she did what she had to do.

She has never been one to shy away from what needed to be done just because it was uncomfortable.

When she looks up to Clint, still hanging on the edge of the cliff – his eyes still glued on her with so much pain in them, _“It’s okay,”_ she mouthes again, hoping to comfort him even just a little bit with it – she is certain that she made the right decision. She could never have lived with herself knowing he died for her – _because_ of her. She could never have lived in a world without him. 

_Is this love, Miss Romanov?_

She decides then that it must be. Whatever form of it. 

As she falls she feels everything fall away with it, blown away by the cold air rushing over her still battle heated skin. All the red, all the _dripping, gushing red,_ suddenly fades away. All the blood stains wash away from her hands and her mind, all the faces of the dead, all the guilt and the pain. It all is washed away by the wind in the wake of her decision, and the knowledge of the impact of her sacrifice. Leaving her to breathe freely for probably the first time in her life, sucking the cold, clean air into her beaten lungs. 

She never knew that this would be what it would take for her to finally let go – to finally forgive and be forgiven. It leaves her with a feeling of freedom she never knew she could feel. 

A freedom she never expected she would get the chance to have. 

A choice she certainly never expected she would get the luxury to make. 

There is no room for choosing when it would come to an end if you are just a pawn in somebody else’s fight. If she is honest with herself, she is surprised she even made it this far. She was meant to die a long time ago, and not only once. 

She was meant to die in the Red Room, getting her head snapped by one of the other girls, or shot by one of the trainers after failing to complete one of the tasks. Instead, she became their top operative and the Black Widow. 

Then she was meant to die on some mission. Either while trying to kill her target or being sacrificed by her superiors for a greater cause that was never even hers to fight for – a hero for those who made her, fallen while spilling blood for them and helping them win their deadly war. Instead, she never stopped fighting, never stopped surviving. 

She was meant to die many times when enemies came for her, hoping to get revenge for something she did to them or someone close to them. Instead, she made them fear her and turn around to run from her. 

After that, she was meant to die when Clint came to kill her. He made a different call and chose to save her life instead. 

At least now, she realizes, it ends completely on her terms. No more Red Room or SHIELD or Hydra. No more people passing her from one side of the never ending battle to another as they pleased. No more being subjected to her superiors making her choices for her and leaving her with no other option then to comply and follow orders in order to survive. Until the lines between enemies and allies became blurred, turning one into the other and back around and leaving everything in an intangible mess of lies and false pretenses – and her unable to define whose side she was on and what she was even fighting for anymore. 

No. At least this happens on her terms. It is her sacrifice to make and hers alone. And for once, it is for something that is actually worth dying for. 

This fact makes it more than she could have ever asked for. Makes it more than enough. 

As she senses the stone cold ground coming towards her, she thinks of all those people who have tried to kill her all her life – all the people who she has successfully defied by her actions. Her enemies chasing after her, people she was sent to kill, the men above her who believed they would own her and could just dispose her whenever she was of no more use for them, even aliens from other worlds battling against her. 

But in the end, none of them ever got to her, none of them succeeded. Because in the final moment, Natasha herself is the one who ends it all. This is completely and utterly her choice and hers alone. No one forced her to take it and no one could stop her from it, either. 

It is a move of power in its own right. A matter of taking back what belongs to her and always should have belonged to her in the first place. 

The thought fills her with so much satisfaction, so much victory, that she almost smiles a bit. 

In the end, she defeated them all. 

In the end, she won. 

When she hits the ground she braces herself – for a burning pain going through every inch of her body, for hearing the sound of her own bones crack against the rocks, for keeping her lips closed even if she would feel the need to scream – but then there is nothing. No pain, no regret, no feeling of the air being crushed out of her lungs. It’s peaceful, somehow, like falling into a soft cloud of darkness and nothingness. 

Her last thought is still on her mind when she lets the darkness swallow her whole. 

_In the end, she won._


End file.
